The History of the Development of Electric Stringed Musical Instruments
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UIUC Physics 193/406 Physics of Music/Musical Instruments History of the Development of Electric Stringed Musical Instruments The History of the Development of Electric Stringed Musical Instruments The history of the development of electric stringed musical instruments – in particular, the electric guitar and the electric bass is a fascinating one. It is a story of the interplay between man’s discovery of the basic, fundamental laws of physics and new physical phenomena and the creative, constructive synthesis and assimilation of this new knowledge into our culture for the enhancement and evolution of our cultures’ music, taking it in completely new directions. The development of the electric guitar obviously occurred from the collective desire of musicians to electrify (and thereby amplify) the sound of their guitar, in order to better match the intrinsic volume levels of other instruments often used in bands. The historical path of how this occurred is a very interesting story! Hawaiian music was initially introduced into America by U.S. servicemen returning from overseas tours of duty in the Hawaiian islands, in the aftermath the Spanish- American war (April 21-August 12, 1898), in which Cuba was liberated from Spanish rule, Puerto Rico and Guam were ceded by Spain to the United States, the Philippines were sold to the U.S. for $20M, and the Hawaiian Islands were formally annexed by a resolution on July 7, 1998 from then-President William McKinley, which was rapidly approved by the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, with a transfer of sovereignty on August 14, 1898. American sailors, while stationed in Hawaii, upon hearing Hawaiian music, were completely enamored with it. Some of them also learned how to play it, and thus brought Hawaiian music back to the U.S. with them when they returned. Hawaiian music rapidly became extremely popular amongst the American public, at the turn of the 20th century. The Spanish 6-string guitar was introduced to Hawaiian culture by Portuguese and other European sailors around the beginning of the 19th century. These gut-stringed musical instruments were also brought to Hawaii by Mexican and Spanish vaqueros (cowboys) around 1832, when King Kamehameha III hired them to teach Hawaiians how to handle an over-population of cattle. Likely in the evenings around their campfires, the vaqueros would play their guitars, often two together, one playing lead melody and the other bass and chords. This new kind of musical instrument intrigued the Hawaiian cowboys, or paniolo, as they were known. When the hired cowboys returned to the Mainland a few years later, some of them gave their guitars to the Hawaiians. The Hawaiian musicians incorporated what they had learned from the vaqueros' Mexican & Spanish music into their traditional chants, songs & rhythms, thus creating a new form of guitar music, known as Hawaiian slack-key guitar (ki ho’alu) which literally means “loosen the key”. The standard E-A-D-G-B-E Spanish guitar tuning was changed to a D- G-D-G-B-D, a G-Major “Taro Patch” tuning, or sometimes tunings containing a Major 7th note (“Wahine” tuning), or tunings with the top two pitches tuned to a wide 5th interval apart (“Mauna Loa” tuning) and other interesting tunings. The open-G (and open-D) tunings in fact already existed in popular Spanish music – as the so-called scordatura (alternative) tunings. So it is possible that the vaqueros actually taught the Hawaiians these open tunings. 1 ©Professor Steven Errede, Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL 2000-Present. UIUC Physics 193/406 Physics of Music/Musical Instruments History of the Development of Electric Stringed Musical Instruments In the mid-1860’s, steel guitar strings were developed, which Hawaiian musicians much preferred for their slack-key open tunings. The steel-stringed guitar, played lap- style was originally invented and popularized in Hawaii. Legend has it that an 11-year old Hawaiian schoolboy, Joseph Kekuku (1874-1932) discovered the sound while walking along a railroad track strumming his guitar. As one version of this story goes, he picked up a railroad spike lying by the side of the track and slid it along the strings of his guitar. Intrigued, he taught himself to play his guitar using the back of a knife blade. Figure 1: Photographs of Joseph Kekuku playing slack-key Hawaiian guitar. Other people who are credited with the invention of the steel guitar are Gabriel Davion, an Indian sailor, around 1885 and James Hoa, a Hawaiian of Portugese ancestry. Joseph Kekuku toured the mainland U.S. in the very early 1900’s and made some of the earliest recordings of Hawaiian music, subsequently heard by many Americans. Hawaiian music was a very definite influence on the subsequent development of blues − Mississippi delta blues − bottleneck/slide guitar in particular, as well as bluegrass music and so-called sacred steel music. It also had a significant impact on the development of Jazz music, and later on had further influence on the use of the steel guitar as often used in western swing and country music. 2 ©Professor Steven Errede, Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL 2000-Present. UIUC Physics 193/406 Physics of Music/Musical Instruments History of the Development of Electric Stringed Musical Instruments Hawaiian music was certainly a huge hit at the 1905 Lewis & Clark Exposition in Portland, Oregon, the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, held in Seattle, Washington. Interest in Hawaiian music was further sparked by the success of Richard Walton Tully’s 1912 Broadway play, “Bird of Paradise”, starring Laurette Taylor. The Hawaiian Quintette recorded the play’s incidental music for Victor. The 1915 Panama- Pacific International Exposition, held in San Francisco, California celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal (completed in August, 1914). More than 13 million people attended this world’s fair, where the Hawaiian Pavilion showcased a great many Hawaiian musicians, e.g. Keoki Awai’s Royal Hawaiian Quartette. During the period 1915-1930, a large number of recordings of Hawaiian music and publications of Hawaiian guitar methods and songs were made by the major music publishers. Figure 2: Poster and ticket for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, California, celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal. 3 ©Professor Steven Errede, Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL 2000-Present. UIUC Physics 193/406 Physics of Music/Musical Instruments History of the Development of Electric Stringed Musical Instruments With the rapid rise of popularity of Hawaiian music in the United States, musicians who played this kind of music became regulars on the famous Vaudeville circuit. Their music was also available to the masses through early recordings of their music – Hawaiian guitar musicians including Joseph Kekuku, with Toots Paka’s Hawaiian troupe, W.K Kolumku, Frank (aka Palakiko) Ferreira and many others – played on the early Edison and/or the Victor Victrola phonograph players. Many of the Royal Hawaiian Band members loved the concept of soloing, improvisation, variation and had a sense of strong group interaction and group dialog. The Hawaiian musicians on the Vaudeville circuit often shared the stage with jazz and blues musicians. Many of the great Hawaiian musicians of the post WW-I era - the 1920’s, such as Sol Ho’opi’i played blues, and were avid fans of e.g. the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and Louis Armstrong. Thus, much cross-pollination/influence of Hawaiian music with Jazz and Blues occurred during this time, and vice-versa. A significant problem encountered with live Hawaiian music was that it was difficult to hear the Hawaiian guitar – since it was played horizontally, the sound from the guitar was projected vertically upward toward the ceiling, and not outward, horizontally toward the audience. In the latter part of the 1920’s, some enterprising men, a Vaudeville Hawaiian guitarist, George Beauchamp (pronounced Beechum) and musical instrument repairmen, John and Rudy Dopyera, in Los Angeles, worked together on developing a mechanically- amplified acoustic guitar. They, along with others such as tool-and-die maker, Adolph Rickenbacker and John Dopyera’s 17-year old nephew, Paul Barth formed the National String Instrument Corporation in late 1925. Their first attempt at a mechanically- amplified guitar was inspired from the horn of an early type of phonograph player – their Hawaiian guitar sat on a stand and the horn was attached to the bottom of the guitar – it worked, amplification wise, but it sounded terrible. Next, inspired by the thin mica disc used in a Victrola phonograph player, they experimented with thin discs of mica, pressed fiber (bakelite), glass, tin and other metals, finally settling on a very thin, conical-shaped spun aluminum resonator. John Doperya particularly liked the sound of this new kind of guitar, using three smaller-diameter aluminum resonator cones, mechanically connected to the bridge via a T-shaped bar inside the all-metal body of the guitar. He applied for a patent on this tri-cone resonator guitar design in 1927, which was finally granted in 1930. Figure 3: George Beauchamp and Adolf Rickenbacker, ca. ~ 1925. 4 ©Professor Steven Errede, Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL 2000-Present. UIUC Physics 193/406 Physics of Music/Musical Instruments History of the Development of Electric Stringed Musical Instruments Figure 4: 1928 National Tricone Resonator Guitar. However, John insisted on the development of a single resonator-coned instrument, because of cost. Only professional musicians could afford the more expensive tri-cone resonator guitar – thus the market for these was finite and limited. An inexpensive, single-cone version had a much bigger potential market, that of non-professional musicians and enthusiasts.